"A Degree of Faith"
Moving mountains if you let it happen
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Rick Tamas
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Text: John 20:24-31
I would like to add my own gentle yet passionate invitation to the wonderful message from Rachel and George Frank concerning the upcoming Spirit Express production. This production is not just for the families of the teens involved. It is for the entire congregation, the entire community. It is based on the story of Esther. When The Rev. Dr. Bill Fritz approached me some two years ago, just as we were finishing our musical on the Book of Ruth, he said to me, “Rick, you need to do a musical on Esther.”
We put it on the backburner and let it cook away for a while. I didn't know Bill had been working on it, and last spring or early summer he approached me again and said, “Have a look at this. Tell me what you think.” He invited me to collaborate on it with him, and as a result, we have a wonderful script. Bill, I would like to say it was an honour and a privilege working with you. Thank you very much! I sincerely hope all of you can support the Ministry with Teens and attend the performance. The teens are having a wonderful time putting it all together.
Why Esther? The Book of Esther receives its name from its leading character, a beautiful and wise Jewish girl whom the King of Persia chooses to be Queen. The setting is in Sousa, the Persian capital at that time, about 475 BC, when Persia was a kingdom of great wealth and opulence. Scholars agree that the purpose of the book was to record the institution of the feast of Purim, and to keep alive for later generations the memory of the great deliverance of the Jewish people.
The central theme of the book is that God works through God's people. Now, there are two important things you need to know about the King. The first was that once he decreed a law he could not revoke it. The second was that no one in the kingdom could appear before the King without a royal summons, not even the Queen. Haman, the newly appointed Prime Minister to the King, is the villain of the story. Through deceit and cunning, Haman plans the extermination of the Jewish people. Esther and her uncle Mordecai are Jews, and when they learn of this they are devastated. Mordecai knows Esther is their only hope and Esther is faced with a very difficult decision: What is she to do?
There is no doubt in Esther's mind what has to be done. She must risk her very life to save her people. In Esther 4:14, Mordecai says to her, “You were meant to be Queen for such a time as this. That is why you are here. Make a difference!”
Now, thank the good Lord we are not faced with such life-and-death decisions in our day-to-day lives. However, there are certainly times when we have all had a bad day. Following in the footsteps of our senior minister, Dr. Stirling, who quoted the lyricist and songwriter Tim McGraw last week, I would like to quote the lyrics of another songwriter, Daniel Powter, who wrote a song called Bad Day. It is one of the songs the teens are singing in their musical:
Where is the moment when needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on.
You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're fallin' to pieces every time
And I don't need no carryin' on.
Cause you had a bad day….
I am not just talking about a bad hair day here. There are times we have all lived through when unexpected events happen. Heartache occurs, sickness, loss of a loved one, times when we need to reach out beyond ourselves for help. Esther's decision required a degree of faith. Scripture tells us that she did not know the outcome of her decision. She took a chance. She had to approach the King and risk her life to save her people.
In our own life stories, we can find many examples of degrees of faith. In our relationships and our activities, you even could say friendship requires a degree of faith. We hope good friendships will last. They are built on trust and hope and honesty. Stewardship requires a degree of faith and the hope that God's kingdom and God's creation and God's church is cared for. Hospitality requires a degree of faith: love and sharing of God's abundance with our neighbours. Forgiveness requires a degree of faith: acceptance of each other's faults, shortcomings as well as our own.
What is a degree of faith? How much faith is in a degree of faith? As you know, a degree is a unit of measure. Three hundred and sixty degrees forms a complete circle. The question remains: How much faith is in a degree of faith? There is an expression, a biblical paraphrase of sorts, that says that it takes faith to move a mountain. It is not a literal biblical translation. When I hear that it takes faith to move a mountain, the question that comes to my mind is: Would it not take a mountain of faith to move a mountain?
Jesus tells us differently. Now, I am wearing a lapel pin that consists of a white cross, and in the very centre of this cross there is mustard seed. In Chapter 17 of both the gospels of Mathew and Luke, Jesus teaches us about the mustard seed of faith. With such faith, mountains can be moved. But how much faith is there in a mustard seed? How much is a mustard seed of faith?
At this point, most of us shake our heads, give up and say, “I don't know what Jesus meant! I will never have enough faith anyway. I can't move mountains.” Our all-too-presumptuous response is that we don't measure up. We don't have the faith of even a mustard seed! It is not surprising that in our present society we respond in this way. I think many of you would agree that today we live in what I call a “How Much” society. When I say a “How Much Society,” I mean a society that is always asking “How much?” How much wealth do you have? How much clothing do you have? How much food do you have? How many friends do you have? How much faith do you have? How much faith do you need? How much faith is enough? How can we ever measure faith? Jesus would never ask us to do something impossible for us to do, so maybe measuring faith is not what we are being asked to do here.
I would like to share a story with you, called: “Our new bay window story.” My wife and I have been saving up for many, many years in order to do kitchen renovations, and I would like to announce that our marriage has survived the kitchen renovations. (which are much like the ones going on over here at the church) and we are in the home stretch. It is wonderful to see. We weren't originally going to renovate, but when the linoleum started to curl in the corners and the kitchen cupboards wouldn't open or close very well, we knew it was time to plunge in and become a “reno family.”
One of the improvements we decided on was a new kitchen window. The old one was a double sliding window with two sides that were supposed to open, and two very dingy looking glass panes that no matter how you tried, wouldn't get clean right in the centre of this window, there was the window frame between the panes. It was about 10 inches wide, so you could never actually look out of the centre of the window: It was either one side or the other. Well, we ordered this beautiful new bay window, with a gorgeous centre pane and two smaller side panes that could open and let God's fresh air in and the beautiful sunshine stream through, and it was installed.
Now, we can see out of this window very clearly. The first thing we saw was a very old splintered, tattered, dilapidated, deteriorating telephone pole! It has always been there, right in the centre. We just never looked out at it. We had been looking around it for years. No matter what we do, this telephone pole will be there. Talking about moving mountains, I think you can move a mountain more easily than a telephone pole! It is no longer used. It is out of service, but that telephone pole is there forever.
We have to make a conscious effort to look beyond the telephone pole, to the beautiful park across the street, and if you look beyond the pole, you see the beauty of the park. On a glorious morning you see the sun rise right through the window. I think that when all we see is the apparently unanswerable question - how much faith is enough? - what we are seeing is that telephone pole.
We need to look beyond it, and I think the story of Thomas can help us to do that. Let's look a little more closely at what scripture recounts happened on that day. Jesus appeared to his disciples after rising from the dead. Mary Magdalene was the first to encounter the risen Jesus, and verses 1-18 in Chapter 18 of John describe it. She told the other disciples, and later that day while the disciples were locked in a room, Jesus appeared to them all but Thomas, who was not there. Jesus said, “Peace be with you.” He showed them his hands, he showed them his side, and then the disciples were glad when they saw that it was the Lord. When the disciples told Thomas afterwards about this miraculous occurrence, his reaction was very clear: He did not believe it. He says, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” You could say that Thomas was having a pretty bad day. I am sure he was having a pretty bad week! It was the worst week he and the other disciples could imagine, for Jesus had died on the cross and been buried. Because of this narrative in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, Thomas became known as “Doubting Thomas.”
Well, I think this kind of name-calling resulted from an incorrect assessment of the situation, even though I understand why our present-day scholars and interpreters and society may have arrived at this conclusion. In the King James and the New King James versions, Jesus does not use the word “doubt” when speaking to Thomas. Thomas does not use the word “doubt” when speaking to the other disciples. It is very revealing to look at the words that Jesus and Thomas do use instead.
First, though, I would like to refer back to our “How Much Society,” the society that is always asking “How much,” because this society is also filled with so much anxiety, so much skepticism, so much doubt, I can't seem to imagine a time that could be filled with such doubt and filled with so much information. If you Google the word “doubt” on the Internet, you will find many quotations extolling the virtues of doubt. Now, I know a certain amount of intellectual reflection and wisdom is greatly needed, for I personally lean towards words such as “discernment,” “deliberation” and “devotion” when seeking guidance. Are we not placing too much emphasis, too much significance, on this one word “doubt”?
Many of you may be familiar with a quote from Shakespeare in Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene 4, where Lucio says, “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” I have come to side with Shakespeare here, because doubt does tend to get in the way of our doing something for good. It holds us back. But, most of all, I side with Jesus. As followers of Jesus, let us see what word he used instead of “doubt.” In the New King James version, Jesus says to Thomas, “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” In the old King James version, Jesus says, “And be not faithless, but believing.”
Thomas was not “Doubting Thomas.” At that moment, he was “Unbelieving Thomas” and though this may sound harsh, it is what he felt: disbelief, no belief. With “Doubting Thomas,” there is uncertainty. With “Unbelieving Thomas,” there is no uncertainty: He just does not believe. “I do not believe” leaves no room for doubt. “I do not believe leaves no room for faith.” Thomas did not believe. When Thomas placed his hands in the side and in the hands of Jesus, Thomas believed in an instant! Unbelief was changed to belief. Doubt is our justification that we will never be good enough, that Christ will never work and move mountains through us. We have a choice: belief or unbelief; faith or faithlessness; one or zero. One body, one God, one Spirit or nobody! And there is no doubt about that.
I have a beautiful young niece, eight years old, who plays hockey. This Easter we were meeting as a family and her father wanted to tell the story of her final game, and my niece interrupted and said, “No, no, let me tell it, Dad. I've got to tell this story!” There was no doubt she had to tell this story. Bubbling over with enthusiasm, she recounted this final game. First period, one to nothing, they were behind. Second period, they tied 1 - 1. Third period, no one scored. Her excitement was building and her eyes were widening, and you could see the joy and the fun she was having telling this story. First overtime period, there was no score. Second overtime period, I think they were now down to playing four on four, no goal, still tied. They went to a shoot-out, she says with this bright smile, and finishes, “We lost!”
I didn't know what to say, so I kept smiling. It was such a wonderful story, and she said, “We had so much fun!” If only the Leafs could have some fun once in a while!
That story moved mountains! That story said so much, and that little girl had no idea what it did to those listening in the room. I think we need to let God move the mountains, and it is not a question of degree of faith. The choice is: faith or faithless; belief or unbelief. Yes, the choice is yours and mine, it is ours, together. God bless! Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.